


For the Love of Trees

by drainbamage954 (cats_cradle6766)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Animals, Chanyeol is a Tree, Fluff, M/M, Mean!Jongin, Nature Magic, Trees, tree hugging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2018-09-11 10:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8976412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cats_cradle6766/pseuds/drainbamage954
Summary: Chanyeol is a tree, which is slightly problematic concerning the area in which hugs are given.  Which is why, to the depths of his bark, he wants to be human.





	

What Chanyeol loves most in the world is the feeling of the wind. Something about how the natural progression of the earth creates the soft caress of air against his skin, sometimes rocking him back and forth with its strength, just brings a sort of euphoric delight to his life and he smiles right down to his roots. Chanyeol is one of the few he knows who really just takes pleasure in the simple joys of life. The wind as it plays around him, the rain as it falls down and soaks him pleasantly, the blue of the sky above him, the birds that have nested for three generations in the crook between his largest limbs. 

Chanyeol doesn’t really know how old he is. All he knows is that he’s older than Baekhyun, because he watched Baekhyun grow up with his family from a kit to a tod, sleek russet fur glistening as his gold eyes crinkled in amusement when Chanyeol would tell him with shaking excitement about the new family of pheasants that had moved in a few bushes away. He knows he’s a lot older than Sehun, who prowls around, not quite yet a tom, and sleeps in his branches with the occasional Cheshire grin. 

All Chanyeol knows is that he’s okay with his life. Granted, he never really considered a different one, having suddenly sprouted up one day, looked at the sky and said “Hi, Mom!” really loudly before the Sun gave him a patronizing look as it hid a small smile. It’s really not bad, he figures, being a tree. It’s simple, but he makes a lot of friends. Baekhyun, for one, who spends most of his time slinking around and chatting with Chanyeol about the newest developments of the forest. And even some of the surrounding trees. 

Though Yixing, the willow tree beside him, never seems to be able to remember his name. 

Sometimes Chanyeol does wonder what it would be like to be able to move, not just sway back and forth in the breeze or the winter storms, but to actually walk around. A part of him wonders he maybe he did know how to do that once before Sehun gives him a very skeptic look and asks if the mushrooms that sprouted up last week are causing him brain damage. 

But Chanyeol is happy. Happy to just stand and never sit and watch things happily and just exist until either he falls over or some asshole comes and chops him down. He’s only really heard stories though, of that horrific death. He can’t imagine it would be enjoyable. 

The first time Chanyeol sees a human is a bright summers day when he’s chatting with Jonghyun, the sociable squirrel, and an animal he’s never seen before suddenly rushes through the bushes and nearly trips over his roots. The animal looks strange, furless except for a shock of it on top of his head, and seems to be covered in strange things. Probably to cover up the embarrassing lack of fur. This animal is breathing heavily, looking about frantically with wild eyes as he stops and straightens up, looking around. 

“What is that?” Chanyeol asks Sehun, who has been idly listening to his conversation with Jonghyun from his favorite of Chanyeol’s branches. 

Sehun looks down at the new animal and sighs as if answering is a huge burden to him. “You’ve never seen a human before?” he asks, looking back to Chanyeol with unblinking eyes. 

“That’s a human?” Chanyeol asks, looking between Sehun and the new animal, who seems to be somewhat lost. “I never knew what they looked like. They sure have colors.”

“Humans are weird animals that don’t have fur and instead put on things they call ‘clothes’ and make messes of everything,” Sehun answers, settling back onto to the branch and closing his eyes. “They’re the ones that chop trees like you down and grind you up so they can sit on you.”

“They’re awful,” Jonghyun adds, nodding energetically as he clutches his nuts. 

Chanyeol looks down at the human, who is swallowing and has shining eyes. “That one doesn’t look so bad.”

“Not all of them are horrible,” Sehun says before sighing and curling into himself, his long striped tail dangling lazily over the branch. “Except when the small ones pull your tail.”

Chanyeol doesn’t respond, just looks down at the human who is swallowing a lot and sniffing periodically. It’s a very strange creature, Chanyeol thinks, as the human wanders around in circles for a moment before finally collapsing in the grass near Chanyeol’s roots and lets out a shuddering sigh. Chanyeol is just about to ask Jonghyun if Humans also eat trees when the human lets out a soft sound and Chanyeol watches in shock as water suddenly pours from it’s large eyes and drips down it’s face. 

“What’s it doing?” Chanyeol asks, feeling alarmed as the human starts to make strange sad sounds and wipes furiously at its face. 

“Crying,” Sehun says, not even opening his eyes as his tail flicks back and forth. “They do that when they’re sad.”

Chanyeol watches as the human on the ground lets out long stifled sounds of clear misery and feels really sad himself. “Why is this one so sad?” 

“No idea,” Sehun says as he cracks an eye at Chanyeol. “Maybe he’s finally realized the uselessness of his species.”

“Or maybe he’s heartbroken,” Jonghyun suggests, watching the human below with interest, his tail twitched back and forth sharply. 

“What’s heartbroken?” Chanyeol asks, dropping a few leaves in his curiosity. 

“I think it has something to do with –hey look! Blueberries!” Jonghyun scampers off a second later and Chanyeol frowns, still wondering what heartbroken is. 

“He looks really sad,” Chanyeol says, looking back down at the crying human. “What do humans usually do when one of them is sad?”

“They hug each other,” Sehun drawls, still not opening his eyes as he flicks his tail against Chanyeol’s trunk in agitation. “I’m trying to nap.”

“What’s a hug?” This is all very new to Chanyeol. He finds it very exciting. 

Sehun sighs and shifts so that he is lying on his belly on Chanyeol’s limb, legs draped down to the ground before he curls them in, wrapping them around Chanyeol’s bark and squeezes. “They do that, except to the whole body.” Chanyeol is amazed at how much Sehun always seems to know.

“You’re really smart,” Chanyeol says and shakes his leaves in admiration.

“I know,” Sehun drawls, curling his legs back under him and giving Chanyeol a sly smile, eyes rising into crescents as his whiskers twitch. 

Chanyeol frowns down at the crying human. “I wish I could give him a hug,” he says as the human wipes miserably at his nose and makes a very strange wet sound, coughing slightly. 

“You’re a tree,” Sehun points out unnecessarily. “Trees don’t hug people. People hug trees.”

“I still want to give him a hug,” Chanyeol says. “If it will make him feel better, I want to give him a hug.” Sehun doesn't reply, just stretches slightly and settles more onto Chanyeol’s branch, tucking his pink nose under his paws. Chanyeol looks down once more to the human on the ground. The human has stopped crying so violently now, instead just sitting there and hiccupping slightly. After a moment, he sighs and leans backward, his back coming to rest against Chanyeol and Chanyeol thinks he’s very warm and soft. 

After a long moment, where the human just sits with his back to Chanyeol and Chanyeol watches him curiously, the human runs one of his paws through his fur and sighs heavily. “I just don’t understand,” the human says, and his voice is very soft. The human looks up into Chanyeol’s branches and Chanyeol thinks his eyes look very nice and big. Humans must see well in the dark. “Am I not good enough for him?”

Chanyeol doesn’t know who the human is talking about. All he knows is that he feels sad for the human. And Chanyeol hasn’t felt sad since he witnessed Yifan catch and eat a muskrat. 

“That’s horrible!” Chanyeol had yelled at Yifan, aghast as Yifan had looked up and stared at him with stern eyes.

“I’m a wolf,” Yifan had said, shrugging his haunches. “It’s what I do. Sehun eats mice and Baekhyun eats pheasants.” 

“Can’t you all just eat berries and shrubs like Lu Han?” Chanyeol had whined. 

“I resent that comment!” yelled Sungmin the bramble bush, shaking his leaves at Chanyeol in indignation. Yifan had huffed and stalked away. 

But now, as Chanyeol looks down into the still wet face of the human leaning against him, Chanyeol feels sad again. And he wants that sad to go away. From both himself and the human using him as a backrest. 

“You really need to learn how to think silently, you know that?” Sehun mutters as his tail flicks irritably. 

“Can humans understand trees?” Chanyeol asks. Though it should be a self explanatory question, considering the human hasn't made any indication he can hear Chanyeol at all. 

“No,” Sehun grumbles, tail now swishing. “They’re too stupid. They rival Yixing in intelligence.”

“Wow,” is all Chanyeol can reply before the human is speaking again. 

“Is it because I’m older than him? Because that’s really not that important. Maybe it’s because there’s something wrong with me.” The human sighs again and closes his eyes. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“I dunno,” Chanyeol tells him, rustling slightly in what Baekhyun has always told him was surprisingly soothing. “But I don’t think so. Aside from the fact that all your fur fell off, you seem fine.”

The human sighs again and pats himself on the face with a paw, wiping away the lines it of drying water. “Why can’t people be more like trees?” the human asks as he nestles further into Chanyeol. Chanyeol wonders if this is a hug. “Trees are always there, ready to support and accept you. Like you, tree. You’re a very nice tree.” He flashes his teeth, opening his big eyes up at Chanyeol and Chanyeol decides he likes humans.

“I like humans,” Chanyeol says to Baekhyun a few days later when Baekhyun shows up, a dead pheasant in his mouth. “I don’t see why you all hate them so much.”

“Did you meet a human?” Baekhyun inquires around his mouthful of feathers, head cocking to the side. He drops the pheasant among Chanyeol’s mushroom neighbors. “Because you should know they are all different.”

“This one was really nice,” Chanyeol tells Baekhyun, shaking his leaves happily. “He was sad and then not so sad and then snuggled me.”

Baekhyun stares at him. “He snuggled you?”

“Well, he did that thing that Sehun does when Lu Han is napping.”

“You mean he slept against you,” Baekhyun clarifies with a skeptical look.

“But he didn’t sleep.”

“So he sat against you.”

“Yep!” Chanyeol is very happy he mastered he art of expressing happiness. Because it always makes Baekhyun’s whisker’s twitch. “And he has eyes like a frog. Are humans and frogs related? They both have no fur.”

“No,” Baekhyun says flatly, sitting down and wrapping his fluffy tail around himself. He cocks his head to the side and looks up at Chanyeol with a bemused expression on his snout. “He sounds like a very special human. Most of them are vile.”

“I don’t think they are vile,” Chanyeol argues and stands a little taller against the sky. “I think they’re nice.”

There is a sudden sound from the forest, a sort of crashing that’s definitely not animal drifts over to them. Baekhyun stiffens automatically and jerks toward the sound. 

“What is it?” Chanyeol asks, ever curious. 

Baekhyun’s nose twitches as he sniffs the air. His eyes narrow. “Humans,” he says before darting into the safety of Sungmin’s brambles where Chanyeol watches him hunker down, almost invisible. A second later, the human from before is pushing his way gently past some hanging vines and flashes his teeth. It's not nearly as threatening as when Yifan does it. Instead it looks happy. 

“I knew I could find it again!” the human says and looks around with bright eyes. “See? Isn’t it gorgeous?”

Another human comes into view. His skin is darker and his eyes a bit smaller. However, he does have longer fur on his head. He looks around with an expression Chanyeol thinks Sehun would have if he were human. Like he just doesn’t give a shit. 

“This is the place you’ve been babbling about since Monday?” the tan human asks, looking around, his eyes settling on Chanyeol and he looks really unimpressed. Which is strange, because Chanyeol knows he’s impressive. He’s a tree. Tree’s are impressive and amazing. Therefore, so is Chanyeol. 

“Yeah!” the smaller human, Chanyeol’s favorite, chirps back to the tan one, holding his front legs up and out to his sides as he spins, walking only on his hind legs. He did that the last time he was here. The tan one does it too. Chanyeol think’s it’s weird, but oddly cute. He wonders what it would be like to walk. “Isn’t it beautiful, Jongin?”

The tan one, apparently Jongin, makes a slight face. “Kyungsoo, we’re just in the middle of the woods. What’s so special about it here?” 

The small human, Chanyeol’s favorite, seemingly Kyungsoo, looks back at the tan human, Jongin, his face falling slightly. “What, you don’t like it here?”

Jongin sighs, closing his eyes for a second as Kyungsoo takes a step towards him. “I guess it is kind of nice,” Jongin admits, sticking his paws into his weird clothes and nodding to the forest. “Serene and stuff.”

Kyungsoo glows as his teeth flash even more. “I knew you’d like it,” he says, reaching forward with a paw and placing it on Jongin’s shoulder. Jongin also flashes his teeth as he lets Kyungsoo lead him to sit down, at Chanyeol’s roots, and lean against his trunk. Jongin raises a front leg and drapes it over Kyungsoo, pulling the smaller tight next to him. Kyungsoo leans into him and Chanyeol feels like he doesn’t really like the tan human all that much. 

“This can be our place,” Kyungsoo murmurs, one of his paws tracing patterns in Jongin’s own paw, voice quiet. 

“Yeah,” Jongin says, and rests his head on top of Kyungsoo’s head. He looks bored. 

Chanyeol doesn't like him. Doesn’t like the tan human because he looks bored and like he doesn’t really care and yet he can touch Kyungsoo, the small human who was crying a few days ago, and can talk to him. And Chanyeol can’t do those things. 

“I want to be human,” Chanyeol pouts and Baekhyun looks up from where he’s hidden among Sungmin’s leafs. 

“Why the hell would you want to look like them?” Baekhyun asks incredulously. “They look like naked weasels.” 

“Hey!” Joonmyun snaps from his home near Yixing’s roots, poking his small head out to glare at Baekhyun. “Don’t insult my race.”

“You’re a mink,” Baekhyun snaps his jaws at Joonmyun, jeering. “Not a weasel. Though sometimes I wonder with how sneaky you are.” Joonmyun snorts before diving back into his hole. Baekhyun smirks after him before turning to look back at Chanyeol. “Honestly, though. Humans are more fuss than they’re worth. Just look at these two.”

Chanyeol looks back down at the two humans sitting against him and his bark shivers in aggravation. The tan one is petting the small one on the head and Chanyeol doesn’t want him there anymore. As if Jongin can feel Chanyeol’s dislike, he looks up, into Chanyeol’s branches and frowns. 

Chanyeol drops some of his twigs into Jongin’s face. Jongin flinches and jerks away, startling Kyungsoo, who looks up at him with wide eyes. Jongin is rubbing his face with his paws, shuffling away. Chanyeol gloats to himself as Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “You’re being a sapling,” Baekhyun tells him. Chanyeol ignores him and drops some leafs on Jongin, along with a few acorns, his leafs shaking in laughter as Jongin cowers from the assault, stumbling away and glaring up at Chanyeol. 

Chanyeol, for one, is extremely proud of himself. 

Kyungsoo’s face is knit with confusion. “Jongin, what-“

“Let’s go,” Jongin snaps, glaring at Chanyeol as Kyungsoo’s face falls. “I changed my mind, this place is weird.”

Chanyeol suddenly doesn't feel so happy. “No, wait!” he says, calling after Kyungsoo as he rushes after Jongin, the tan human crashing through the forest irritably. He sags, his leafs hanging limply, and looks down at Baekhyun. “I really wish I was human.”

“Were you just jealous?” Baekhyun asks, giving Chanyeol a calculating look. 

“What’s jealous?” Chanyeol asks, the word foreign. 

“It means you saw someone else have something you didn’t and wanted it.”

“Yep,” Chanyeol states, shaking slightly in his certainly. “I was jealous.”

Baekhyun drops his head to the ground in defeat. Despite Chanyeol being at least twenty years older than him, he still feels like he’s always the older one in their friendship. 

Despite the Chanyeol dropping acorns on Jongin incident, Kyungsoo and Jongin continue to visit Chanyeol. Jongin looking around with a bored expression on his face as Kyungsoo smiles at everything like it’s made of stars. Sometimes Kyungsoo comes alone, without Jongin, and just sits under Chanyeol, leaning against him and looking around quietly. 

Sometimes Kyungsoo talks to Chanyeol. About the place around them. About his home. About something called ‘university’ which sounds really busy and complicated. About Jongin and how Kyungsoo think’s he’s really neat but isn’t really sure about ‘them’. Whoever ‘them’ is. 

One day, it is Jongin who is pushing through the thicket, alone and looking around carefully, as if waiting to be caught. He adjusts his shoulders, as if cold, before walking up to Chanyeol. Sehun, who is sitting on Chanyeol’s lower branches, shifts, watching Jongin with unblinking eyes. 

“He’s the one you don’t like, right?” Sehun checks with Chanyeol, tail twitching slightly at his side. 

“It’s not that I don’t like him,” Chanyeol answers, his leafs shaking slightly under Sehun’s calculating eyes. “It’s just that - _Holy shit! That hurts!”_

Sehun’s eyes widen as he looks down at the tan human, who is bent close to Chanyeol and Chanyeol wishes he weren’t a tree because he would love to be like Lu Han or Jongdae right now, fleeing from the danger that is currently digging into him. 

“What the hell is he doing?” Sehun exclaims, suddenly springing to his feet and looking down at Jongin with shock. “Is that a freakin’ _knife?”_

Jongin is bent towards Chanyeol, a paw braced against Chanyeol’s trunk and digging something sharp and evil into Chanyeol, dragging it down his bark and chipping away his skin. His tongue pokes out the side of his mouth as he concentrates and Chanyeol wishes he were human because he wants to sob in pain. 

“Hey Jongin, what are you-“ Chanyeol doesn’t know when Kyungsoo arrived, just that suddenly he is standing there, frozen as he stares at Jongin, who turns, jumping slightly to look at the smaller human. He pauses, the sharp thing still stuck in Chanyeol. “What are you doing?” Kyungsoo breathes, his voice not happy and bright at all but instead apprehensive as he stares at Jongin. 

“Hey,” Jongin says, and smiles sheepishly. He stands up slightly and straightens, finally removing the horrible thing from Chanyeol. “I was just, um,” he fumbles with his paws for a moment. “You’re here early. I was going to surprise you.”

“Are you carving into my tree?” Kyungsoo demands, his voice sharp and Jongin’s smile falters. “Jongin, what the hell!”

Chanyeol recognizes through the raw pain that Kyungsoo has called him ‘his tree’ and feels a brief rush of happiness before Jongin shrugs and turns, suddenly slamming the sharp thing directly into Chanyeol, driving it deep and Chanyeol shudders because _ow_. 

_“Jongin, no!”_ Kyungsoo bellows, rushing towards the startled tan human and knocking him aside, grabbing the horrible-painful-pain-thing and wrenching it from Chanyeol, breathing heavily before rounding on Jongin. “What the hell were you thinking?” he demands. 

Jongin looks shocked before suddenly flashing to annoyance. “I was carving our names into our tree!” he snaps, gesturing to the gaping wound in Chanyeol’s side. Sehun is looking between the two humans on the ground and Chanyeol. Chanyeol is slightly frantic because he’s pretty sure he’s bleeding. “It’s romantic!”

“It’s horrible!” Kyungsoo yells at him, throwing the sharp-horrible-painful-pain-thing somewhere and looking at the abused portion of Chanyeol’s trunk. “Why would harming a tree be romantic?”

“Look, it’s what normal people-“ Jongin starts, looking exasperated but Kyungsoo cuts him off. 

“I am not normal people!” Kyungsoo snaps, placing a paw over the carved bark and glowering. 

Jongin looks extremely angry. “You’re right,” he spits out. “You’re not.” Jongin doesn’t say anything more, just frowns and storms off, whacking through the underbrush. Chanyeol hears Jonghyun cluck his tongue in dislike before looking down at Kyungsoo, who is breathing heavily. 

Kyungsoo, after a moment, sighs and drops his head, turning to look back at Chanyeol and the horrible mark Jongin had left in the side of the trunk. He frowns at it and Chanyeol wants to pet his head to make the frown go away. But he can’t. Because he’s a tree. “I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo says after a moment, laying a gentle paw over the mark in Chanyeol and running gentle fingers of his bark. Chanyeol shivers slightly at the touch. “Jongin shouldn’t have done that. It’s a horrible thing to do. And you’re too precious to harm.” He smiles faintly and Chanyeol feels his roots squirm in appreciation of the expression. “You’re my precious tree.”

Kyungsoo lingers for a few more moments before sighing and walking back to the cluster of branches he had come through, bending down and picking up something he had dropped earlier. “I guess I’ll just eat this myself then,” he says, looking down at brightly colored things in his paws and smiling sadly. “And here I was thinking our first anniversary would be a lovely one.” He looks up at Chanyeol. “At least I have you,” he says and flashes his brilliant teeth. 

Kyungsoo sits for a good three hours, eating interesting looking things from his colored objects and just leaning against Chanyeol, occasionally telling Chanyeol about something. “It would be nice if I could give you some,” he says at one point, holding up something that looks and smells very funny. Kyungsoo frowns. “I’m talking to a tree.” He cocks his head to the side. “Though technically the first sign of insanity is talking to yourself, not trees.” He flashes his teeth again and pops the whatever-funny-smelling thing into his mouth before settling back into Chanyeol and Chanyeol really really really wishes he were human because then he could be like Jongin is sometimes and wrap his front legs around Kyungsoo from the back and hold him there forever. 

“I want to be human,” Chanyeol whines to Sehun the next day as Sehun is washing himself. 

“Why would you want to be human?” Sehun asks as he cleans behind his ears. 

“Because I just want to be human,” Chanyeol pouts and Sehun gives him a lazy look, licking idly at a paw. 

“You can become human,” Yixing calls over from his shady spot, long branches waving lazily at Chanyeol.

“Really?” Chanyeol says, feeling excitement race through his acorns. “How? How do I become human?”

Yixing seems to contemplate for a moment, his branches still as Lu Han looks up from where he’s lying under the willow, eyes curious. Yixing swishes his long branches and lets out a bark of a laugh. “I forgot!”

“How are you so consistently useless?” Lu Han asks him, shaking his antlered head slightly at his friend. 

“I provide you shade and shelter from the rain, shut up,” Yixing chides Lu Han, swatting him in the rump with one of his many swinging branches. Lu Han just sniffs, looking over to where Sehun is cleaning himself on Chanyeol’s branch. 

“You can turn human by talking to the forest god,” Lu Han tells Chanyeol, who perks up at his words.

“The forest God?” Chanyeol repeats, shaking his leaves in excitement. “Who’s he?”

“No one,” Baekhyun drawls, prowling from a brush and shaking a burr from his tail, frowning when it doesn’t leave him. “He doesn’t exist.”

“You liar!” Chanyeol yells incredulously at Lu Han, who smiles evilly at him. 

“You’re just too gullible,” Lu Han says in a sing-song voice and accidentally tangles his antlers in Yixing’s branches, causing both of them to cry out and Sehun to pause as he washes his ears. Again. 

“So, do you know how I can turn human?” Chanyeol asks, looking down to Baekhyun and feeling defeated. 

Baekhyun frowns, scratching himself behind the ear with his back foot. “Well, it’s a long shot, and I still have no idea why you would want to be human in the first place, but-“

_“Tell me!”_ Chanyeol bellows at him and all of the animals and trees in the vicinity just stop and stare. Baekhyun, frozen with his foot behind his ear, looks up at Chanyeol with slightly wide eyes. 

“Okay,” he says. “ You need him to hug you.”

Chanyeol frowns. “He already did that.”

Baekhyun snorts in agitation. “Not just normal hug. But on a special night. The night of the summer solstice.”

“That’s it?” Chanyeol asks, feeling like this is too easy. 

_“That’s right!”_ Yixing suddenly yells, swishing his branches happily. “He has to hug you or something!” 

“You’re dumber than the dirt you stand in,” Lu Han says and Yixing dumps all of his dead leafs on the stag. 

“How do I get him to hug me again though?” Chanyeol asks, looking back to Baekhyun as Sehun finally jumps from his branches, sauntering over to Lu Han who is trying to shake Yixing’s leafs from his antlers. 

Baekhyun slowly lowers his back leg to the ground and looks up at Chanyeol, a sly grin spreading over his fox snout as he looks up at the tall eager oak. “Leave that to me,” is all Baekhyun says before suddenly slipping into the underbrush. 

The night of the summer solstice arrives a few days later and Chanyeol is waiting in apprehension for Kyungsoo to maybe show up and for Baekhyun to set his plan into motion. Whatever his plan actually is. 

“You know, it would help if you actually told me what you had planned,” Chanyeol tells Baekhyun as the fox crouches in wait under Sungmin’s protective branches. 

“Shut up, I have to have some enjoyment in this,” Baekhyun says and keeps his eyes on the thicket Kyungsoo and Jongin always come through. 

Chanyeol huffs and watches a colony of ants work a couple of yards away. They’re very efficient. 

_“Oh my- What the Hell!”_ suddenly rings through the forest, following by loud crashing and lots of panicked sounds. The next second Kyungsoo is bursting through the thicket, branches and other things stuck in his hair as he looks about in wild panic, followed closely by Jongin as the two dance away from Kris and the group of forest animals Chanyeol happily calls his family. In a flash, Baekhyun springs from Sungmin’s cover and puts himself between Kyungsoo and Jongin, bearing his teeth at Jongin as the tall tan human flinches away with a loud squeak. 

“Why are we being attacked by the cast of Bambi?!” Jongin yells, his voice cracking as he looks at Kyungsoo, stumbling back as both Yifan and Baekhyun growl and put their backs to Kyungsoo, effectively separating the two humans as Kyungsoo turns a very interesting shade of pale. 

“I don’t know!” Kyungsoo shouts back, trying to scramble away from Zitao as the small skunk skitters up to him and tries to reassure him with small pats. Apparently Kyungsoo doesn't understand, because he tries to scuttle away, falling over with a squeak. “Jongin!”

“This is all your fault!” Jongin yells, dancing away from Baekhyun and Yifan as the two advance on him and startling as Lu Han’s antlered head suddenly looms into his vision. “You and your crazy love of nature. If we had just stayed home and played video games like I had wanted to-“

“Jongin! This is not the time for you to be moaning about us not playing Halo like we do every time I visit you!” Kyungsoo snaps, trying to dodge Jongdae as the rabbit boxes him in against Chanyeol’s side. “We kind of have a situation! I kind of have a situation here!” He turns wide pleading eyes on the tan boy, back now fully pressed against Chanyeol’s trunk as Yifan turns to him and looks at him with his severe golden eyes. Kyungsoo looks mostly terrified. “Jongin! It’s going to eat me!”

Jongin takes a brief moment, looking between Kyungsoo, the wolf in front of him, and the forest. “Jongin!” Kyungsoo yells again, looking entirely panic stricken now as he tries to climb backwards up Chanyeol. Jongin just stares and Kyungsoo, with a frightened whimper, turns and scampers up Chanyeol’s lower branches, hauling himself to the safety of Chanyeol’s lower limbs. “Jongin, you can’t leave me here!”

Jongin shifts his weight for a moment before Yifan turns from Kyungsoo to fix his eyes on the tan human. Jongin’s entire form freezes up before his eyes flash to Kyungsoo. “Sorry!” he shouts briefly before diving in between the trees and vanishing, Sehun and Lu Han streaking after him. Kyungsoo lets out a very scared sound, looking down at the small cluster of animals below him, all staring up at him, and chokes back a sob, tears once more dripping down his face. 

“He just left him!” Chanyeol says in disbelief, looking at the human currently clinging to his branch for dear life. 

“Yeah, well, clearly he’s not a winner,” Yifan says derisively as he looks up at Kyungsoo and licks his lips. His eyes flicker to Jongdae and Zitao who are currently standing by his feet, looking up at Kyungsoo curiously. 

“No eating friends,” Chanyeol chides, noticing the glint in Yifan’s eyes. 

“I know,” Yifan growls, the hunger evident in his eyes as he looks back up at Kyungsoo. “I’m just checking on them.” 

Kyungsoo whimpers and he scuttles back on his branch, moving to press himself, front flush against Chanyeol’s trunk, eyes squeezed tight in terror. 

_“Now!”_ Baekhyun yells and as if lightning cracked the sky, all of the animals gathered around Chanyeol suddenly bolt, scattered into the trees as Chanyeol feels something zip through his core down from the heavens and into his roots. Kyungsoo lets out a terrified sound and the next second Chanyeol suddenly feels a lot more than he’s ever felt before. He also has a lot less limbs than he’s ever had and doesn’t know how to stand anymore. With a soft ‘oof’ he falls to the ground and is surprised that he’s not dead. 

Because usually when trees fall to the ground, they’re either dead or dying. 

But Chanyeol isn’t dead or dying. He lies on the ground, feeling his trunk rise and fall as air moves through him rather than around him and feels something heavy against him. He looks down, feeling his body move and his vision, now much more narrow than it used to be, focuses on black fur tangled with sticks and leafs and twigs. He looks down a little more and realizes he’s not a tree anymore. 

Chanyeol has become human. 

Kyungsoo, though heavy against him, seems to have gone completely rigid. After a moment, he raises his head up and looks up at Chanyeol, who bares his teeth happily and widens his eyes as much as he can. Kyungsoo’s own eyes widen to the largest Chanyeol has seen them yet and makes a very loud sound, suddenly scrambling back from Chanyeol and leaving him feeling cold. 

_“What the Hell!”_ Kyungsoo yells, scuttling back on frantic paws. “Who the hell are you?!”

_“Chanyeol!”_ Chanyeol yells, and is happy to hear sound coming from his body. It’s much lower than Kyungsoo’s and he thinks it’s fitting. “HI!’

“Where is my tree?” Kyugnsoo yells, looking frantically around and his breathing picks up significantly. He looks back at Chanyeol and lets out another yell as Chanyeol tries to use his own four legs to move and just succeeds in falling over. Standing is hard. “Why are you naked! Where is my tree? Oh my God, I’ve finally actually gone insane.” He buries his face in his hands and starts to make very intense noises.

“I’m the Tree!” Chanyeol yells back happily, giving up on moving with his animal legs and instead just resorting to lying back down and rolling himself towards Kyungsoo. It’s significantly easier to move this way. “You hugged me and now I’m a human too!”

Kyungsoo looks between the cracks in his fingers before letting out a horrified whimper and shutting himself into his hands again. “I’m dreaming, this is a nightmare, I’m dreaming and this horrible horrible dream where I get chased and nearly eaten by wolves and foxes and raccoons isn’t real.”

“I’m real,” Chanyeol says and manages to control one of his legs well enough to shoot it out towards Kyungsoo, laying it across Kyungsoo’s lower legs like Jongin had done many times. “See?”

“Why are you naked! Don’t touch me! Oh God, god, _God,”_ Kyugnsoo dissolves, trying and failing not to shudder violently. Chanyeol looks at him, feeling the flesh around his eyes wrinkle. 

“What is naked?”

Kyungsoo cracks his eyes to look at Chanyeol, his breathing stilling slightly. “Naked is naked,” he says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“I don’t understand,” Chanyeol says, frowning. 

“It means you don’t have the clothing they put on themselves,” Baekhyun says, padding back into the clearing and looking severely pleased with himself. “Congratulations. You’re also a furless weasel look alike.”

“Stop with your insults!” Joonmyun snaps, scampering from Yixing’s roots and sniffing irritably at Baekhyun. 

“Hey, no fighting!” Chanyeol says, looking between his friends. “We should be celebrating!” 

“Because you’re now hairless and an annoying human?” Baekhyun says skeptically. “Congratulations, you now have an annoying voice just like the rest of them.”

“I sound amazing,” Chanyeol says, baring his teeth happily at Baekhyun. “You’re just jealous.”

“Are you,” the soft voice of Kyungsoo breaks the conversation and Chanyeol jerks to look at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo clears his throat, swallowing timidly. “Are you talking with them?”

Chanyeol looks at him in wonder. “Of course,” he says, looking curiously at Kyungsoo. “Can you understand them?”

Kyungsoo’s wide eyes watch him with interest. “No,” he answers and Chanyeol’s own eyes widen. “I didn’t even know they were saying something.”

“Really?” Chanyeol says, aghast. “They never shut up! Especially Sehun when you get him on a topic. He and Yixing could talk the leafs off of anyone.”

“You’re one to talk,” Joonmyun grumbles as he sits down and watches Chanyeol with interest. “I can still see you as you,” he comments. “Except now you’re ugly.”

“I bet I’m beautiful,” Chanyeol shoots back. He turns to Kyungsoo. “I’m as nice as a human as I was a tree, right?”

“I-“ Kyungsoo looks extremely lost and scared. “I- you- what? Are you seriously telling me you were the tree?” 

“What else would I have been?” Chanyeol asks, laughing. “Rocks aren’t alive, silly.”

“And this fox here is your best friend, right?” Kyungsoo says, gesturing to Baekhyun, who looks highly amused. 

Chanyeol’s eyes widen. “I thought you said you couldn’t understand us!” 

“Oh for the love of-“ Kyungsoo says and drops his paws only to bring them up again and tangle them together. “You can’t have been my tree.”

“Why not?” Chanyeol asks, confused. 

Kyungsoo just stares at him for a second before reaching up a paw and hitting himself hard in the face. _“Ow”_ Kyungsoo yells, eyes wide in shock at the pain evident in his eyes. Chanyeol’s own paw reaches up instinctively to cup Kyungsoo’s face, now slightly red, and look at him with wide eyes. 

“What are you doing?!” Chanyeol asks, feeling scared that Kyungsoo is now hitting himself. Only animals with rabies do that. Chanyeol hopes Kyungsoo doesn't have rabies. 

“Oh no,” Kyungsoo says, about to hit himself again but Chanyeol grabs his paw, preventing him. “No, no, no, no. I have to be dreaming. This has to be a dream. I can’t be going crazy! I have a history report due on Thursday!”

“What’s a history?” Chanyeol asks, feeling delightfully curious. “What’s a Thursday?”

Kyugnsoo makes a desperate sound and leans as far away from Chanyeol as he can. 

“Hey! I know!” Chanyeol chirps, suddenly rolling away from Kyungsoo so that his front side is visible. Kyungsoo lets out a strange gurgling sound and covers his face with his paws again. “Here! See!” Chanyeol says delightedly, pointing to the mark Jongin had left those weeks ago when he had wounded Chanyeol. “The tan human, Jongin, did this to me. Remember?” He gently takes one of Kyungsoo’s paws from his face and sees Kyungsoo crack open an eye. 

There is a pause. 

Then Kyungsoo slowly drops the other paw from his face and opens his eyes, leaning forward slightly and staring and the dark red mark on Chanyeol’s trunk. “Oh my God,” he breathes out and suddenly looks back at Chanyeol. “You might actually be my tree.” He looks very surprised and intrigued and Chanyeol just wants to use his new legs and human things to finally give his Kyungsoo that hug he has been wanting to give since Kyungsoo had first stumbled to him all those suns ago. 

“Of course I’m your tree,” Chanyeol laughs, feeling the sound bubble out of his mouth and into the air. He feels much more alive as a human. 

“But why are you not a tree now?” Kyungsoo asks, suddenly looking confused again. 

Chanyeol bares his teeth, and holds out his two front legs, paws open. “Because I wanted to be able to hold you and tell you don't feel sad,” Chanyeol tells him, enjoying the way Kyungsoo’s eyes widen. “And now I can always be there for you when you need someone to lean against. And I can hug you back now when you hug me.” He beams his happiness as Kyungsoo watches him with wide eyes, his face turning a pleasant pink. “Now I can be your human instead of your tree!”

Kyungsoo just looks at Chanyeol for a moment as the once-a-tree-now-a-man holds out his arms and practically beckons for Kyungsoo to fall into his embrace, the very definite mark of _‘Kyungsoo & Jo’_ standing in violently red letters against his right hip bone, exactly the same as Jongin had been trying to carve into Kyungsoo’s tree all those weeks ago. 

Before Kyungsoo and Jongin had really begun to fall apart. 

Before Kyungsoo wondered if Jongin had ever really cared in the first place. 

Kyungsoo swallows. 

This man, currently lying stark naked on the forest floor where his tree once stood, is, undeniably, attractive, even if his voice is too loud and his face twitches when he smiles. He radiates warmth and smells like the woods and something about him is just as comforting as the tree Kyungsoo had begun to call his own. 

“Are you-“ Kyungsoo has to clear his throat. “Are you going to become a tree again?” he asks, tentatively. 

Chanyeol frowns before his head jerks to look at the fox which has been watching them with clear interest on its features. “Will I turn back into a tree?” Chanyeol asks the fox. 

The fox gives Chanyeol a weary, exasperated look. Kyungsoo just stares at it before Chanyeol is turning to him again, once more grinning widely in an almost disconcerting manner if it weren’t for the warmth behind it. 

_“Nope!”_ Chanyeol yelps at Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo, despite himself, smiles. 

Chanyeol has never felt so excited and happy and alive in his life. He watches with electric anticipation as Kyungsoo slowly bares his teeth at him, relaxing slightly. “Okay, I guess you can be my human,” he finally says. “For a little bit,” he adds as Chanyeol lets out a delighted whoop. “At least until I figure out what to do with you.” 

Chanyeol tells Kyungsoo how happy he is by positively throwing himself on top of Kyungsoo, wrapping his front legs tightly around the smaller human and bursting from joy. 

_“But clothing first!”_ Kyungsoo yells, suddenly sounding slightly desperate. Chanyeol just finds himself making that laughing sound again. 

“I love being human!” Chanyeol cheers into the night and dissolves into delighted laughter. It isn’t too long after that Kyungsoo’s voice is joining his.


End file.
